Apple expected to launch paid news subscription service on back of Texture magazine buy

As part of folding the Texture "Netflix for magazines" service into its own products, Apple appears poised to fire up a premium subscription offering integrating curated news to continue to grow services revenue.

Following Apple's acquisition of Texture, the company allegedly cut about 20 employees, likely due to redundancy with Apple's own services. This is reportedly part of a larger effort to bolster Apple News, with an integrated offering expecting to launch within the next year.

Citing sources familiar with the matter, Bloomberg claims that, as Texture does now, a "slice of the subscription revenue" will go to magazine publishers that are included in the program.

Tuesday's report by Mark Gurman at Bloomberg isn't exactly revelatory, and doesn't add anything more than is already known about the initiative other than the layoffs. Apple Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue spoke about the Texture acquisition at the SXSW "Media Curation, and Why it Matters" session, talking about how important curating news was to Apple, and how Texture would help Apple accomplish its goals -- making it very clear what Apple had in mind.

"We're excited Texture will join Apple, along with an impressive catalog of magazines from many of the world's leading publishers." Cue said in a statement about the buy. "We are committed to quality journalism from trusted sources and allowing magazines to keep producing beautifully designed and engaging stories for users."

"We want the best articles," Cue said at the SXSW event regarding the company's plans for Texture. "We want them to look amazing and we want them to be from trusted sources."

...I used this for some time (before Apple ownership) and cancelled due to the lack of a desktop mac option.
The Windows desktop app exhibited remarkable potential, especially on a cinema display in portrait mode, to me being better than a physical magazine in many ways - larger, brighter, multimedia capable, screen shot-able to send references to clients, etc...
If Apple can offer a mac desktop version that was less buggy (Windows had size limits) it would lure me back...

Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, except beautiful design is never on the list or a concern if you're all about "quality journalism." It's the latter that you want to build on as a reliable service, not how pretty you think it should look.

Oh, and by the way, is this not version 3 of Apple's forays into dealing with news? First it was the news app, now it's Apple News, now it's this.

I also can't want to see how many techie boyz will insist that "I'd pay may more for..." which is always a lie among such a cheap crowd that often disparages journalism and loves to talk about its impending, deserved death. Oh look, there it is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, except beautiful design is never on the list or a concern if you're all about "quality journalism." It's the latter that you want to build on as a reliable service, not how pretty you think it should look.

Oh, and by the way, is this not version 3 of Apple's forays into dealing with news? First it was the news app, now it's Apple News, now it's this.

I also can't want to see how many techie boyz will insist that "I'd pay may more for..." which is always a lie among such a cheap crowd that often disparages journalism and loves to talk about its impending, deserved death. Oh look, there it is.

It seems like this would be an enhancement to Apple News not a replacement or sign that Apple News failed. With hardware sales flat the only real growth area for Apple is to generate more revenue from existing customers. This is one way to do it.

What most people are missing is how successful Apple News has become, and consequently, the huge potential for Apple to offer quality "reading" material. Apple News was growing quickly and a year and half ago was up to over 70 million monthly active users (up from 40 million in 2015), and is probably over a 100 million by now. Apple has realized it is on to something big. The iPad is also uniquely positioned to take advantage of integrating technology into beautiful magazine and newspaper articles. (Biggest problem is to continue to improve curation without letting its admitted left wing political bias impact it.)

If Apple were to offer magazines and newspapers a cut of the subscribers monthly fee and go AD free with no trackers, etc. it will be an enormous hit and major threat to Facebook.

Just noticed there is at least one rival, offering thousands of magazines, called Readly. As an att customer I’m getting 12 months free. Just started today. It’s a different deal, as you’re limited in how many you read each month. So good, Apple even more incentive to improve texture.

Not all those trusted sources are indeed trusted sources. Especially in the news segment. Putting their own political spin or bias into the reporting of a story and thus clouding its integrity...from those with a left-wing bias to those of a right-wing bias. All helping to create a lot of hate in the world.